


distractions

by rangerhitomi



Series: radical dreamers [7]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3217718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Nasch tries to teach his foreign knight some local traditions. It doesn't go so well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	distractions

Nasch is busy adjusting his sarong when there’s a knock at the door.  The servants had been informed not to disturb him before the festival, and Merag is overseeing some of the courtyard preparations, so it could only be a member of the Court… or…

It’s Durbe, and he’s still dressed in his armor. He has an armful of crumpled silks, his face has smudges of dirt on it, and his armor is smeared with mud. (Nasch thinks it’s mud, anyway; he’s not sure.) He immediately looks at the ground when he sees Nasch, who only now realizes that his sarong is the only article of clothing he is wearing.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, my friend,” Durbe says in a rushed voice, and he still won’t meet Nasch’s eyes, “but I’m having… um, a bit of trouble figuring out how to wear this.” Durbe lifts the arm full of silks.

“Did you try taking off the armor first?” Nasch suggests, and Durbe makes a noncommittal noise. Nasch sighs. “Come in, before someone sees the sorry state of you.”

Durbe murmurs a hurried _thank you_ and walks past Nasch, still not looking at him. Only, instead of setting down the clothes and removing his armor, he stands in the middle of the room looking like a lost pet.

Nasch fights back a laugh and wordlessly takes the crumpled silks from Durbe’s arms. He sets them on the bed and tries to remove the wrinkles by smoothing them out, wondering whether Durbe even knew how to wear silk.

_Apparently not._

“Well, you should start by taking that off.” Nasch gestures at Durbe’s armor before walking back to his mirror. He pulls his loose silk tunic over his head and is in the process of tying it when he realizes that Durbe is still standing in the middle of the room. “It’s not going to take itself off you, Durbe.”

“I know, I just… I can’t…” Durbe trails off into a mumble and Nasch pauses in the middle of lacing his sandals.

“Did you just say you can’t _reach_?”

He straightens up, tilts his head at Durbe, and Durbe’s face is red.

“I said, ‘a few of the clasps are hard to reach.’” Durbe sounds a bit testy now, and Nasch holds up his hands, unable to stop the grin on his face. “And it’s not _funny_. My friend.” He’s able at least to look at Nasch now, though his eyes linger for probably more than a proper amount of time on Nasch’s bare legs. Nasch can’t bring himself to mind too much. “Why can’t I just wear this?”

Nasch lifts an eyebrow. He approaches the knight, tilts his head, stares at him for a moment, and then rolls his eyes. “The traditional garb of my kingdom is mandatory” –he slides his hand around Durbe’s armor until he finds the catch—“for this festival.”

“I’m not even from here,” Durbe says irritably, shrugging off his arm guards before working on the breastplate.

“No exceptions.”

“My f—“

“I have a name,” Nasch reminds him, and he helps Durbe remove his shin guards. “Besides, it’s impossible to do the ceremonial dance in this clunky armor.”

A gauntlet falls to the floor with a loud clatter. “The _what_?”

“The ceremonial dance,” Nasch repeats firmly, “which you will be doing if I have to order you to do it.”

He has no authority to do anything of the sort; being a knight from a foreign kingdom, Durbe does not answer to Nasch. Durbe, predictably, reminds him of this fact, that he could just hop on Mach right now and fly away to get out of having to wear a dress and dance.

So Nasch holds out a hand and says, in a completely reasonable voice, “first of all, it’s not a dress, and second, you’re the one who keeps coming back, Durbe.”

Durbe has nothing to say to this, so he opens his mouth and closes it like a fish floundering on the pier, finally ending with a pout that makes him look like a child.

“I don’t dance,” he says finally, crossing his arms.

As far as Nasch had heard from some of his other soldiers, Durbe did very much like dancing at the local taverns. “Too bad. Here.” Nasch starts untying Durbe’s undershirt, but Durbe steps back. “Don’t be difficult, Durbe. I’m trying to help you get dressed.”

“I will do it myself, my—“

“ _Nasch._ ”

“—friend,” Durbe finishes firmly. “Turn around, and I will get out of my underclothes, and if I need your help I’ll… I’ll ask.”

Nasch turns around as requested and takes a few steps to the side so he can avoid seeing Durbe in the mirror. The knight hasn’t noticed that he was standing in the mirror’s line of sight, so Nasch can probably get away with it, but he feels that there are probably less sleazy ways of seeing Durbe naked, so he gives him his privacy. He hears Durbe shuffle over to the bed, and in his peripheral, there’s movement, followed by an oath and a growl of frustration. “You have to tuck it up and under,” Nasch offers in way of advice, and he wishes he can see Durbe’s face turn red. (He’s talking about the sarong, of course.)

(Except not really.)

“Why is it so short?” Durbe mutters. “I do not feel comfortable exposing this much of my bare skin. And this _thing_ won’t _stay_.”

“Are you wearing the underskirt?”

“Yes.”

“Can I help you tie the sarong, Durbe?”

There’s a moment of silence, a heavy sigh, and a muttered affirmative. Nasch turns to face Durbe and lifts both eyebrows. Durbe is tensely holding the corners of the sarong, attempting to tie them in a knot at his waist. His chest is bare, and the underskirt goes up to his mid-thigh. It’s almost odd how someone as small-statured as Durbe could have such… tone to his body. He _is_ a knight, and he _does_ have to keep himself in shape, but (and it’s silly) Nasch has never thought about there being an actual _body_ underneath the armor Durbe constantly wears.

He focuses on the knot of the sarong instead, which Durbe seems to have wrapped about six times, so it looks obnoxious. Careful not to touch any of Durbe’s skin, Nasch starts to undo the knots, one at a time. It’s tedious work.

“What kind of dance is it?” Durbe says out of the blue, and Nasch glances up.

“It’s a simple dance.” Three knots down. “I’ll show you when I’m finished with this.”

“I’ve never really danced before,” Durbe admits. “My… my occasional tavern visits don’t count.”

Nasch side-eyes him, amused. “Didn’t they ever teach you how do dance in your homeland?”

“My duties require me to be around the other knights almost constantly,” Durbe says, a little tersely, “and men have no occasion to dance with other men.”

“Mm.” Nasch ties off the knot and smiles. “Is that so.” He extends his hand. “Well, I suppose it’s all right for the knight to learn how to do a… civic duty from his king, right?”

“You’re not my king,” Durbe says seriously, but he places his hand on top of Nasch’s anyway.

Durbe was not lying when he said he wasn’t much for dancing; he has no rhythm and he has difficulty even with the simple eight-step introduction to the dance. He’s also amusingly averse to the idea of partnered jump-kicks, and when Nasch links their arms together at the elbows and attempts to demonstrate how easy it is, Durbe doesn’t jump at the same time and they end up nearly falling over. Nasch laughs; Durbe stammers out apologies. But he tries, again and again, and finally he gets halfway through the dance without missing a single step. Nasch is proud of him.

“Your fingernails are filthy,” Nasch remarks as they’re practicing a wrist grip. “How do you get so much dirt in them when you wear gloves all day?”

“It is difficult to shovel manure with gauntlets, my friend,” Durbe replies placidly, and he finally laughs at what is probably a grimace on Nasch’s face.

 _That’s so gross; I’ve been_ touching _them,_ Nasch thinks, and he leads Durbe toward the wash basin near the mirror, grabs him by the wrists, and plunges Durbe’s hands in the cool water. As Durbe rubs his hands together in the bowl, Nasch grabs a cloth, spits on it, and proceeds to wipe the dirt off Durbe’s nose.

“Mother of—Nasch, what are you—“ Durbe tries to squirm away but Nasch rubs intently at the dirt until he is satisfied.

“There, that wasn’t so bad.” Nasch gives Durbe a smirk. “And how about that. You remembered my name.”

He realizes suddenly that Durbe is still shirtless, and that the skirt _is_ really quite short. Durbe seems to have the same thought, and hurries back toward the crumpled silks on the bed. Durbe turns his back as he struggles to pull a tunic over his head. With a coy smile on his face, Nasch watches while pulling his hair back with a silk ribbon, taking silent steps closer.

“This feels strange,” Durbe begins, turning. “What do y—“

Nasch is right behind him now, one hand on Durbe’s back, and Durbe lets out a muffled sound. Without a word, Nasch reaches around Durbe and adjusts the ties on the front of the tunic. It’s white, just as the sarong is, and Durbe is radiant in white. He feels Durbe tense up and gives Durbe’s shoulders a quick rub.

“It looks good on you,” he murmurs. “You should wear it more often.”

A strange, uncharacteristically high-pitched noise escapes Durbe, followed quickly by a small cough. Nasch isn’t certain whether Durbe is unaccustomed to compliments on his physical appearance or embarrassed or nervous; he tries to cover up whatever he’s feeling by picking up pieces of his armor, except it’s all too much and too heavy for him to just carry around in his arms, so he ends up dropping half of it back on the floor.

“You shouldn’t bend over so much in that,” Nasch suggests, and Durbe abandons his quest to collect his armor.

Durbe lets out a low breath. “My friend, when—“

“Gods, Durbe, call me by my name.”

“—when you said it looks… that I should wear this more often—“

“I meant just that.” Nasch picks up an emblem of the kingdom in the midst of the jewels Durbe had dumped on the bed earlier. He slips it over Durbe’s head and adjusts it on Durbe’s chest. “Why won’t you stay here?”

Durbe’s fingers trace the crest’s sharp edges as he mulls it over. He looks into Nasch’s eyes a few times, like he wants to say something, but blinks rapidly and looks back down each time. Finally, he sighs. “There are too many distractions here.”

“From?”

“My… my oaths.” Durbe clears his throat. “Thank you for your time.”

He abandons his armor and hurries out of the room. A moment later, he comes back in, and Nasch isn’t surprised.

“I forgot my—“

Nasch holds up the sandals and Durbe mutters his thanks before practically running into the hall again.

 _Too many distractions, hmm?_ Nasch pulls his own emblem over his head and lets it bounce against his chest. He snorts with silent laughter. In all Durbe’s distractions, he hadn’t noticed that Nasch only taught him the first half of the dance.


End file.
